President Barack Obama’s team wants the world to know his environmental policies had nothing to do with the rolling blackouts blanketing Texas this week.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer swung back late Friday at conservative media and lawmakers who have pinned the blame on Obama for the lights going off across the Longhorn State amid extreme cold temperatures and high winds.

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The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the lead regulatory agency in the region, says that weather was to blame for the mechanical failures at more than 50 power plants around the state.

“As valuable as the Internet can be in helping to spread information, most people know that you can’t believe everything you read, and they should check the source before relaying every alarming story they read,” Pfeiffer wrote on the White House blog.

“One such story is going around the Internet over the past two days claiming that the Obama administration is somehow responsible for the rolling blackouts in Texas that have caused terrible hardship for so many Texans,” he added. “The source is questionable and the story is unquestionably false.”

Friday, the Drudge Report prominently displayed several mainstream media reports about energy shortages across several Western states and linked to a story from prisonplanet.com claiming the Texas blackouts were “a direct consequence of the Obama administration’s agenda to lay siege to the coal industry, launch a takeover of infrastructure under the contrived global warming scam, and help usher in the post-industrial collapse of America.”

Rush Limbaugh mocked news reports Mexico had been importing power to Texas during the emergency and argued that federal red tape had stopped construction of new electric utilities.

“It’s not just in Texas, that’s everywhere,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on his website. “And, folks, let me tell you something: If Obama gets his way, rolling blackouts will be the new norm. What do you think ‘green energy’ is?”

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) piled on with a statement calling the blackouts an unacceptable safety risk that’s the result of federal energy policies run amok. “We have the desire, the resources, the knowhow and the will to build new plants, but federal red tape has blocked construction,” Barton said.

I THOUGHT WE LIVED IN A REPUBLIC WITH CHECK'S AND BALANCES IN GOVERNMENT - NOT SO WITH THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION - WE HAVE A DICTATOR THAT DOES WHAT EVER HE WANTS WITH TOTAL DISREGARD FOR THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM! The Obama Administration acted in contempt by continuing its deepwater-drilling moratorium after the policy was struck down, a New Orleans judge ruled. Interior Department regulators acted with “determined disregard” by lifting and reinstituting a series of policy changes that restricted offshore drilling, following the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, U.S. District Judge, Martin Feldman of New Orleans ruled yesterday. “Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,” Feldman said in the ruling. “Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt,” Feldman said. President Barack Obama’s administration first halted offshore exploration in waters deeper than 500 feet in May, after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off the Louisiana coast led to a subsea blowout of a BP Plc well that spewed more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

Been without power for a few days here in Indiana as well, due to the ice storm. At least Texas doesn't have four inches of ice everywhere to deal with. Which proves what I've thought all along. Global warming my azz!!

Mr Obama is ruining our economy he hasn't a clue what he is doing ! Did you see the private sector created 35 thousand jobs, that is it...America is dying under Mr. Obama's failed lack of leadership abilities..

But seriously, the White House defense while in a way true, is patently wrong.

Obama policies may not have "caused" the problem, but by denying the creation of additional power plants it Absolutely diminished the existing power grid from being able to meet required demand in an emergency, hence resulting in the blackouts. And emergencies, as any thinking man knows, are inevitible.

If I only let 50 people have 50 cars, instead of 51, the second a car breaks down, that person has to walk.

The problem with electricity, the second 1 breaks down, they're all in the dark, just like Obama.

So many Republicans are just plain stupid, they swallow whatever **** Fox and Rush shovel their way. Come on people, it's OK to think for yourselves every once in a while, I know it's scary, but you might like it.

remember nat gas which emits 1/2 the co2 of coal on a per mmbtu basis could NOT be used for electric power generation until the repeal of the Fuel Use Act in 1988. The pipline infrastructure and supply has not kept up with the total potential TCF demand and hence when these weather situations occur, the primary use is for residential heating and NG use for power generation is severely restricted hence the rolling blackouts. Energy policy (generation mix) in the US was and is really being set by utility sector compliance reaction to a "hoge poge" of EPA conceived environmental restrictions and NOT by real debate by our elected policymakers ...... my 25 cent bet says that this event will change nothing in DC only more back and forth finger pointing....

So what's the surprise here - if it is on Drudge, Prison Planet or any other right wing smear machine or coming out of the mouth of a tea bagger or a GOP politician you know the probability of it being a lie verges on 100%

Right wingers are always ready to play the "Obama Card" regardless of how stupid and inappropriate it may be. Power plants take years to decades to build... blaming this EPA or any regulations for this occurrence is beyond ludicrous.

The question is, how can Obama effectively address this level of idiocy and still come across as presidential. The issue shouldn't even be dignified by a response, yet people are dumb enough to repeat this stuff.

"A key state senator blamed some of Texas' power problems Wednesday on a decades-old policy that, at least for one day, unintentionally pitted the state's natural gas system against electricity power plants, both of which were struggling to meet near-unprecedented demand amid an ice storm that settled across most of the state. "

Mr. Pfeiffer, you are a liar. You leftists have been shutting down power plants here in PA for the past year, all because of your "fine particulate" regulations, imposed by (wait for it!) the EPA. As a consequence, our electricity rates have been going through the roof (necessarily). And I won't even get into the stupidity of the global warming crowd in the face of half a foot of snow in Dallas and ice storms in Houston